Nvidia Quietly Unveils GeForce GTX 460 SE Graphics Card.

Nvidia Corp. on Monday quietly added a new graphics card into the popular GeForce GTX 460 lineup of performance-mainstream solutions. The new GTX 460 SE product will feature lower compute performance compared to predecessors, but some of its specifications will leave behind the GeForce GTX 460 768MB.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 SE features code-named GF104 graphics processing unit (GPU) with 288 stream processors, 48 texture units and 32 render back ends. The chip itself works at 650MHz, while the compute processors operate at 1300MHz. Nvidia recommends to install 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3400MHz onto the new graphics cards. Unfortunately, there is no recommended pricing set onto the model 460 SE.

Although the GeForce GTX 460 SE comes with reduced amount of stream processors, geometry/tessellation engines as well as texture units, it features fully-fledged 256-bit memory controller as well as 32 raster operation units. As a result, despite of offering lower amount of horsepower for rendering modern video games that GeForce GTX 460 768MB, it can show higher performance in older games with high-quality full-scene antialiasing enabled.

At press time no stores in the U.S. sold the novelty. In the European Union numerous online ships started to sell the GeForce GTX 460 SE for €143 - €160, which is not far below the price of GeForce GTX 460 1GB (€150 - €170) and is higher compared to the price of GeForce GTX 460 768MB (€135 - €160).

Given the rather controversial configuration of the GeForce GTX 460 SE GPU as well as its price, it is unlikely that the product will become popular among end-users. Nonetheless, system makers may embrace the new GeForce since it carries both popular "GTX 460" moniker as well as 1GB of memory.